10. Mataram Theme

Mataram theme had the right idea of how to make a magazine theme, but the design failed to impress. It has good features such as easy video display option and several level deep commenting capability – but the text-heavy will fail to impress today’s image-hungry viewer. If it’s any consolation the home page will load fast.

Theme Page | Theme Demo | Theme Download

9. Technical Speech Theme

Technical Speech theme is exactly how the name sounds. It has a polarising sparse-image design and you will either love it or hate it. The dynamic sidebars and menu design is impressive – but the 404 error received when I went to the author’s page and theme page does not bode well for theme’s support for future WordPress versions.

Theme Page | Theme Demo | Theme Download

8. Sirup Theme

Sirup is a colorful magazine style theme if you like the blog header and post titles being highlighted. The CSS-only theme loads fast and options available would be useful to the most novice WordPress user. If you are just experimenting or learning about magazine themes Sirup would be a good choice.

Theme Page | Theme Demo | Theme Download

7. MyMag Theme

myMag theme has a smooth slideshow effect based on Javascript which is visible prominently on the home page. A very interesting feature is the news ticker located at the bottom of the page which scrolls through articles.

Theme Page | Theme Demo | Theme Download

6. Albizia Theme

Don’t let the difficult name throw you off – Albizia is a feature rich magazine style WordPress theme. The options can be configured from the theme control panel with little to no HTML or CSS knowledge.

Theme Page | Theme Demo | Theme Download

5. Vina Theme

Vina is a “standard” or rather “go-to” theme if you are looking for implementing magazine style on your blog. It has a classic look with its grid-based design and the shadow effect gives the auto-grabbed thumbnails a nice backdrop.

Theme Page | Theme Demo | Theme Download

4. Nature Theme

The Nature theme has several features which are generally only available for paid themes. Features such as out-of-the-box recent comments and posts along with a distinguished layout make this theme stand out.

Theme Page | Theme Demo | Theme Download

3. Magazine Basic

Don’t let “basic” in the name fool you. This theme packs a punch full of theme options, widgets and sidebars. But if you need an extra kick try out the Magazine Pro theme.

Theme Page | Theme Demo | Theme Download

2. Traction Theme

Traction succeeds in showing off content in a clean magazine theme which is packed with features. The carousel feature which cycles through featured posts is an excellent implementation of design and code and pushes this theme to the second spot on my list.

Theme Page | Theme Demo | Theme Download

1. Arras Theme

Arras theme snags the top spot on this list of magazine themes because of the variety it offers. If 10 blogs were all running the Arras theme they can be customized as 10 very unique looking sites.

Theme Page | Theme Demo | Theme Download

Go to Gmail’s website and go to Settings on the top right. Go to Forwarding and POP/IMAP page and make sure IMAP is enabled.

Now open your brand new installation of Outlook 2010. It will start up a wizard to set up your email address. Click the option to Manually configure and click Next.

Click Internet Email and click Next.

In this window put in your name and email address. This is the name that others will see who you send emails to. Set the incoming server to imap.gmail.com and the outgoing server to smtp.gmail.com. Then click More Settings.

You can rename the mail account here which by default is your email address. I name it something more pleasing like “Gmail”. Then go to Advanced tab.

Set the incoming server to 993 and encryption to SSL. The outgoing server should be 587 and encryption should be TLS.

Go to Outgoing Server tab and check the box for outgoing server requires authentication.

Once you click OK it will bring you back to the “Add New Account” screen where you should click Test Account Settings which tells you if it is set correctly or not. When you get a success screen then you are good to go. Click OK and enjoy your newly set up Gmail in Outlook.

In Windows7 go to Start > Control Panel and look for Mail. If you cannot find it type “mail” in the search box on the top right. Then click Mail.

This will bring up the Mail Setup dialog box with Show Profiles section that we are interested in.

In most cases you will just have one mail profile. If you delete this profile then all your Outlook settings will be reset to default. To delete click Remove and then press OK.

Now that Windows7 is officially out and available to everyone, most people would want to take advantage of the shiny new operating sysem from Microsoft. But how do you check if your mahcine meets the requirements for Windows7? You can go by the official Microsoft requirements or use the Upgrade Advisor. Microsoft has outlined very general system requirements of a PC with 1GHz processor and 1GB RAM for 32-bit version. Windows7 Upgrade Advisor gives a much more customized report specific to your computer and network environment.

Windows7 Upgrade Advisor is a simple 8Mb applicaiton which can be downloaded and run instantly. One thing to note is that the Advisor recommends to connect other USB and external devices such as phones before running it. This way you can find out all at once if all of the attached devices are supported by Windows7.

When the Advisor finishes running a report is generated showing incompatibilities and and issues that may arise either from hardware or software components that are being used. The Advisor provides a 32-bit and 64-bit version of the report if your computer is capable of support both types of operating systems.

What Is An Affiliate Network?

An affiliate network is like a virtual store selling products to your website visitors. But instead of manufacturing products you are selling a retailers products and taking a cut off the profits. An affiliate website can be seen as a middle-man which is diverting web-traffic to a particular location. But instead of blindly paying for clicks the advertiser only pays when the visitor buys something. This is also known as Cost Per Action (CPA) advertising or performance-driven advertising.

Google Affiliate Network is completely separate from AdSense or AdWords and as a website publisher you must submit a separate application even if you already run Adsense. The bar for admission is not very high and the rules for eligibility for a website are quite vague. Google requests that you ”are an expert in driving and converting visitor traffic” and manage a site that” attracts a desirable audience” in a particular niche. Of course you will also need to be able to test different affiliate advertising offers and promote the ones that have high conversion.

Google has to keep its reputation of high quality. This is reflected in some of the advertisers participating in the program. There are no Cash4Gold or Rich Dad schemes. Some of the partners in Google Affiliate Network are Verizon, Kohls, Citibank, Office Max and Barnes & Noble. So you might be thinking another day, another affiliate network polluting the internet – what’s in it for you? Well, Google has something called AffiliateVIP status which will give you access to exclusive promotions, deals and help you stand out with the advertisers.

Google Affiliate Network – The Application Dashboard

The Google Affiliate Network dashboard can be over whelming at first. There are four major tabs – Home, Links, Advertisers and Reports.

• Home Tab: This is the default view which gives you a snapshot overview and status of all the promotions that you are following and advertising on. It gives you the most important stat that drive any affiliate – Earnings Per Month (EPC) broken down for the past 3months range and for the past 7 days. I also gives you the Network Rank within the Google Affiliate Network. The higher your rank the better your chances of landing some exclusive promotions directly with the advertisers. On the left column on the page you also see some basic stats such as total number of advertisers you are promoting, total impressions, visits to the landing page, conversion rate and amount earned. There is also a big prominent block of hot promotion listings which highlight several good deals that might interest you. The top header of the page also has links to payment data and any messages you might have.



• Links Tab: This page shows the latest text and image ads based on the advertisers in your network. Most ads have a tracking URL along with a Creative URL which makes it very easy to copy and paste it on the webpage where you wish to run the ads. Each link also shows detailed description if they are included with the ad by the advertiser. It also provides a quick link to the landing page which will help you write effective ads titles and descriptions. Links tab also has a sub-page showing product RSS feeds and Hot Promotions section.
• Advertisers Tab: This is where most newcomers will spend a majority of their time selecting advertisers and products.
• Reports Tab: The reports tab allows you to run performance data over certain time periods for one or all your advertisers. If you have a particular report that you run often then there is a way to keep Saved Reports.

Google Affiliate Network has a lot of great advertisers who have tons of products. More importantly almost all the products have certain coupons and discounts that make the job of all web promoters very easy. Overall Google Affiliate Network is worth a shot.

To disable any program from automatically starting up, go to Start – Control Panel.

In the Control Panel look for Change Startup Programs under Programs. Click on change startup programs.

This will load up Windows Defender – Software Explorer. The category should be Startup Programs. This will give you a list of all the programs that load when your computer powers on.

In the Windows Defender window, the right column gives you details what any program is about. Select any program on the left to look for details on the right. If there are any programs that you don’t need to startup then simply disable it. You will see a confirmation screen (seen below). Click Yes to continue and that particular will no longer load with your computer.

Over time computers have become fast, efficient and a storehouse of knowledge, documents, pictures and media. In fact if something were to happen to our computers we generally pay hundreds of dollars to recover the data that was on it. Physical hard drives crash all too often and when you need it the most. That is why all IT professionals understand the need for backups. But most backup software is expensive; require some knowledge and experience to set up and also requires additional hardware (such as an external hard drive) to backup computer data. In most cases people with limited computer experience give up due to the complexities of setting up a backup. Out of this necessity Mozy has carved out a market for themselves.

Mozy online backup hits all the right buttons – it has a web based intuitive interface to control your account, simple and easy to use software and a free version with 2GB space. In case you have more than 2GB backup data then they also have an affordable subscription. It is this combination of features and affordable pricing that exploded Mozy’s growth. Just ask the million customers that have already signed up. And many more are enjoying the peace of mind.

How Does Mozy Work?

Mozy has a simple process to backup your data. There is a small program that you download and runs on your computer with an easy to use interface. This is used to select which files and folders you would like to backup. The program then encrypts all files and backs them up over your internet connection. This process is secure and painless. The backup process can even be automatically scheduled to run at specific times (such as 4AM everyday) so as not to interrupt your work.

• Security: For the technical crowd, the data is transferred over the internet over SSL which is the same encryption used to protect your credit card information when buying something online. On Mozy’s servers your data is protected by 448-bit blowfish encryption to prevent unauthorized access.
• Bandwidth: The Mozy application can be configured to use only a certain amount of bandwidth without affecting your computer’s performance. It will also give you an estimate of the amount of data you have selected to backup and how long it will take with each setting. You can also configure Mozy to only use very little bandwidth between 9AM and 5PM and use more after 5PM.
• Advanced Settings: There are a few very advanced settings in the application which allow you to define only certain sets of files in a folder to be backed up. Such as all files with the word “Alice” or all pictures with the name “Birthday” in it should be backed up.
• Virtual Drive: Another very nice feature is the ability to add Mozy as a virtual drive on your computer. This basically means you can copy (or cut) and paste any files or folders directly on to the Mozy virtual drive and it will be copied over to Mozy’s servers. This is especially helpful if you do not prefer to use the backup utility.
• Restore Files: In order to restore files from Mozy to your computer simply select which files and folders you would like to restore and where you would like to save them on your computer. Mozy does the rest. It will instantly start downloading all your files securely to your computer. If you would like to restore a single file to a previous version simply right click on the file and click Restore to bring up more options. All changes to files backed up with Mozy will be automatically saved for the past 30days. This means, if you writing a new chapter for your book every week then all the changes are chronologically saved and can be recovered independent of each other. In case you lost your computer Mozy has a step-by-step utility which will restore all files as it appears on the Mozy backups on to your new computer.

How Do You Know Mozy Is Safe?

Mozy is trusted by more than a million customers who use it to store their most important documents, pictures, financial papers and anything else that you can store on your computer. It is used by individuals and businesses alike to save their most important files. To give you an idea of the amount of data already being backed up by Mozy take a look at the comparison with the Library of Congress.

What if you backup a lot of data with Mozy and then decide it is not the best fit for you? Well, Mozy is one of the few places which let you delete your account online without any hassle with a couple of clicks. There are no long queues and no one will try to persuade you on the phone to upgrade your plan. Within 24 hours all your data will be completely deleted from Mozy.

Home Users VS. Business Customers

There is a difference between MozyHome and MozyPro subscriptions. The Home is overall designed for laptops and desktops at home. The Pro plan is mainly for servers, databases, file shares, centralized backup management for multiple servers and 24hour phone support. This is a very logical distinction between the Home and Business customers and should not have any confusion.

The pricing is also different for MozyPro. Unlike the flat $4.95 for MozyHome, the Pro version costs $3.95 + $0.50/GB per month for workstations and $6.95 + $0.50/GB per month for servers.

What’s The Catch?

The only catch with Mozy is the 2GB limit for its free accounts. Many users will never need to go over that limit. But if you have lots of videos and tens of thousands of pictures then you will need to get the $4.95 unlimited plan. And by unlimited I really do mean unlimited – there are no restrictions for disk space or the number of files or folders.

Verdict

Backups are an essential component of the computer world. Computers and hard drives fail at an alarming rate and there are very few easy to use, affordable backup solutions for average home computer users. Mozy has the backup infrastructure and 24×7 support available to provide enterprise level data backup for the regular computer user. It is feature-rich, easy to use, affordable and free. It is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED and preferred backup solution for anyone with a computer. Get a free account now!

Everest Home Edition “offers the world’s most accurate system information and diagnostics capabilities, including online features, memory benchmarks, hardware monitoring, and low-level hardware information. Everest does its job as advertised packed in a tiny package ( less than 4MB).

Keep in mind that the company making this product is no longer giving away the free version. The old version is still available from Major Geeks. But I would recommend getting the new Ultimate Edition for about $40. When you first install Everest it will run a 40 point report which covers pretty much everything. It gives you a detailed list which can be saved to a file, emailed or printed.

If you wish to see this information in real time without generating the 40-point report everytime, head to the Everest Home Edition application window which has sections that you can click and see stats. It even shows you the current CPU and hard disk temperatures (depending on what sensors came prebuilt with your machine).

Everest free edition also provides a handful of benchmarking utilities memory read, write and latency. It might be useful if you are having memory leak issues or if you really want to check memory usage.

Whenever I put in a misspelled command or some accidental key strokes such as below it locks up the computer for 30seconds to a minute depending on how long the router is looking for the server.

To turn this feature off you have to turn off domain lookups under the router configuration mode.

Commands:

R0#conf t
Enter configuration commands, one per line. End with CNTL/Z.
R0(config)#no ip domain lookup
R0(config)#^Z
R0#

If you haven’t done so already head over to LinkedIn website to sign up for an account. After logging in click on Account & Settings link on the top right of the page.

This will bring you to the Settings page. Click on Public Profile.

On this page click customized buttons which will take you to a list of various designs.

Finally you are on the Promote your profile section which has all the goodness. Select which button/badge design you prefer and copy the HTML code next to it. Paste this code on your site where you wish to display your LinkedIn personalized link.